


What Persists

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: First Poem for You [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:03:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair and Zevran: 20 years in 20 drabbles (and a coda).</p><p>I don't even know how to tag this, much less describe it.  I can't decide if it's pretentious pseudo-artistic junk and I should trash it, or if the story really does come through.  I don't know if the rating should be T or M.  I don't know if I should tag it as hurt/comfort or hurt/no comfort.  I don't know whether to call it plotless, or leave that off because there is a vague through-line.  Basically, for all that it's my story, I'm actually kind of puzzled by it.</p><p>So let's say this: for this story, canon consists only of what was in Origins.  Not any of the DLCs; just Origins.  Which means no potential cure for the Calling.  I like to think it's not completely depressing?  There's kind of a positive note at the end?  Maybe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Persists

**Author's Note:**

> They’ll last until  
> you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists  
> or turns to pain between us, they will still  
> be there.

I.

The keep in Amaranthine has more staff than Grey Wardens, by a margin so wide as to be ludicrous. Zevran knew how few Grey Wardens remained in Ferelden, but seeing half a dozen men and women rattle around in a space meant for hundreds is simultaneously amusing and painful. When they assemble in the courtyard on the first morning, Zevran thinks them more a mummer's farce than a fighting force.

Alistair is unconcerned, relaxed in a way Zevran has rarely seen him. When he asks, Alistair grins. "I have you, and I don't have to be king. What else matters?"

 

II.

Alistair likes to watch.

It takes Zevran most of their first year to realize this, that a man who rarely even glances at another person nevertheless grows painfully hard at the thought of watching his lover suck another man's cock. Of all the things Zevran has seen and done in his life, this particular desire is so mild as to hardly be noteworthy, but it mortifies Alistair.

"This is something we could do, querido," he suggests once. "It would not be difficult."

Alistair is appalled. "I would never do that to you."

Zevran hesitates, then lets it go. For now.

 

III.

Zevran has no interest in getting involved with the Wardens, either as help or hindrance. He's here because Alistair is, and while he'll do his part to defend Amaranthine, his position is ambiguous enough to make others uncomfortable.

He keeps mostly to himself until the morning he watches a pair of recruits practice knife fighting in the courtyard. They treat the knives like swords, seeing only the disadvantages of the shortened reach without understanding its advantages. It's more than Zevran can tolerate, and he tells them so. Vehemently.

The next morning, there are four recruits waiting eagerly for his instructions.

 

IV.

Eventually, Zevran persuades Alistair to admit to what he wants.

"Once," Alistair allows grudgingly. "We can try it once."

Zevran chooses their third with the same care he applies to choosing weapons, and for much the same reason: he wants no surprises at an inopportune moment.

When he brings the man into his room blindfolded, there's a moment where he thinks Alistair will bolt. Before he does, Zevran asks the man, "Are we alone here?"

The man frowns, licks his lips. "You said someone would be watching. You didn't say who."

The tension in Alistair's body changes, and Zevran smiles.

 

V.

Perhaps Alistair would have made a terrible king, but he excels as Warden-Commander, and Zevran is still Crow enough to judge that accurately. It helps that there are so few Wardens to start with. It allows him time to learn, and practice, and make a novice's mistakes in front of a relatively undemanding audience. By the time there are enough Wardens that Zevran doesn't have to suppress inappropriate fits of mirth when passing the training yard, Alistair is as easy in the role of leader as he once was in that of follower.

The new role suits him, Zevran thinks.

 

VI.

The assassination attempt comes in the middle of a crowded market, while Alistair's attention is briefly diverted by a tray of sweets. If Zevran hadn't been standing almost on top of him, he would never have been able to stop it.

As it is, the knife slashes Alistair's arm instead of his throat, and the assassin doesn't have time for a second strike before Zevran's knife ends the matter.

"But why?" Alistair asks later, when the two of them are alone. "I'm no one now."

"Querido," Zevran sighs, fond and exasperated. "Is the leader of Ferelden's Grey Wardens 'no one'?"

 

VII.

Half a dozen Wardens become half a hundred, and Alistair struggles to learn that he can't lead fifty the way he led six.

"You will kill yourself," Zevran says, the fourth night Alistair falls asleep at his desk. "You need to sleep."

"I need to finish this," Alistair says, smoothing out a page that he wrinkled when he landed on it face first. "It's been on my desk three weeks already."

"Then another day won't matter," Zevran says. He is baffled and impatient, frustrated in more ways than one. "Come to bed."

"I'll be there in a minute," Alistair says.

 

VIII.

"You're leaving?" Alistair asks, not raising his eyes from his papers. "When will you be back?"

"I am not coming back," Zevran says.

Alistair's head snaps up at last. "What? Why?"

There are too many answers to those questions, and Zevran looks at him in silence for a long time.

_"Because I have never stayed so long in one place, and I grow sick of it."_

_"Because I am tired of taking second place to the papers on your desk."_

_"Because I cannot watch you kill yourself by inches."_

All true, and all lies.

"Because it's time," he says finally.

 

IX.

Zevran may have left Amaranthine, but he listens to gossip about it where he can and tries to sort truth from prurient imaginings. Somehow, he doubts that Alistair is truly having orgies in the dining hall every night, no matter how much people like to tell that story.

As far as he can tell, there are a few lovers, but no one permanent. There is still a place for him, if he chooses to return to it.

Well, there's a place for someone. Who can say if it's a place for him, and he does not return to find out.

 

X.

He does well for himself, even if he doesn't dare claim the title of Crow; the Free Marches are never at peace, and there's always someone who needs a quiet blade. After a while, he gains a reputation, with all the attendant advantages and perils.

When the Crows come looking for him, luck brings him into Isabela's path for the first time since Denerim. She is as she has always been, laughing and quick, and she gives him a place among her crew without hesitation.

"How's Alistair?" she asks.

"I don't know," Zevran says, without emotion.

She doesn't ask again.

 

XI.

"Go back to him," Isabela says after a year, so Zevran does.

The man he finds is colder than the one he left. "Do you need money?" the Warden-Commander asks, when Zevran steps into his office.

"No."

"Then why are you here?" He fidgets with his pen, a last trace of the boy Zevran first met.

"I should not have left."

The Warden-Commander's face wears the blank mask every commander learns eventually; he hadn't learned it when Zevran left. "I didn't know if you were alive or dead."

Zevran looks away. "I'm sorry."

That the words are true changes nothing.

 

XII.

He's allowed to stay in Amaranthine as an instructor.  Some of the Wardens he remembers are gone, and new faces have replaced them, new faces that eye him suspiciously.  For that matter, some of the old faces glare too, as if he cares what any of them think.

The only face Zevran cares about is the one staring coldly at him from the high table every night at dinner.

It's seven months before someone knocks on his door late one night, and he opens it to find Alistair, rather than the Warden-Commander.  Red-eyed and angry and cursing him, but Alistair.

 

XIII.

"Why did you leave?" Alistair asks him finally, long after Zevran stopped waiting for the question.

"You were killing yourself, and I could not watch." He hesitates a long moment. "And I felt this place had become a trap."

"Then why come back?"

"I realized there was a difference between a place I _couldn't_ leave, and a place I didn't _want_ to leave."

Alistair stares at him, incredulous. "That took two years?"

"I've lived many places, amado, with many people. Here with you is the first time I had a home. So yes, it took me two years to understand."

 

XIV.

Sometimes Zevran chooses their third from among the Wardens, despite Alistair's initial reluctance. The first time Zevran suggests it, Alistair goes on at length about good order and discipline, and when he's done, Zevran says simply, "As you wish, querido."

It's far more effective than any argument, as Zevran knew it would be. Still, he's more careful than usual when he chooses a Warden: no one who is indiscreet, or easily swayed, or overawed by their commander.

Everyone suspects who it is sitting in the shadows while Zevran stands naked in the light, but no one _knows_ and that's enough.

 

XV.

The fever lasts for days, and Zevran knows that the healers fear for Alistair's life. He's rarely sick, but no one is immune to everything, and rarely isn't the same as never.

Sitting beside the bed as Alistair sweats and thrashes and coughs, Zevran wishes he had never come back. If he'd stayed on Isabela's ship, he wouldn't have to watch, helpless, as Alistair's coughs grow hoarse and his thrashing weaker.

After six days, Alistair's eyes open, and when he sees Zevran, he smiles weakly. "You're here," he whispers.

Zevran kisses his forehead gently. "Where else would I be, amado?"

 

XVI.

Watching Alistair sometimes, Zevran wonders if he might have learned to be king. He has the presence for it now, and the confidence. The boy he was then is still present in his quick laugh and shy charm, but it's been tempered by who he is now, the Warden-Commander and a living legend and an occasional advisor to Ferelden's royal house. He can be cold when he needs to be, without letting that coldness take over everything.

Maybe he would have learned those same lessons if he'd sat on the throne with Eamon and Anora beside him.

Or maybe not.

 

XVII.

Alistair collapses on top of him, spent and breathless, and Zevran arches into him like a cat. The open window lets in afternoon sunlight and the wet-earth smell of spring, and right now, body still trembling from his own climax, Zevran wants for nothing in the world.

His fingers comb idly through Alistair's hair, and he watches sunlight play over the strands. Up close, they're a hundred different shades and hues, gold and wheat and honey, all slowly giving way to silver.

He knows he'll never have a chance to see the silver win, but for now, he can pretend.

 

XVIII.

It comes for the first time in the middle of an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Zevran is stretching, trying to fend off the encroaching stiffness of age, and he looks up to see Alistair frowning into the middle distance.

The expression could mean anything, but somehow, Zevran knows. "Alistair," he says sharply, as if his voice will be enough to undo Blight sickness and drown out the Calling.

"It sounds prettier than I expected," Alistair murmurs. Then he blinks, sees Zevran's face, and hastens to add, "But very faint, I can hardly hear it."

He doesn't need to add, "For now."

 

XIX.

"He's a good man," Alistair says sleepily into Zevran's shoulder one night.

After a moment, Zevran realizes he's speaking of the man who just left, tonight's third, and confusion gives way to pain. "Stop," Zevran says.

Alistair leans back to give him an innocent look that strips twenty years from his face and makes Zevran's chest hurt.

It's a much less pleasant ache than the one in his knees, and his jaw.

"I am not your chain of office, to be given to your successor."

Alistair looks horrified. "I just-"

"Hush, amado," Zevran interrupts, touching his face apologetically. "I know."

 

XX.

They're curled together in bed when Alistair asks, "What will you do when the Calling is too loud for me?"

Zevran hesitates, then tells the truth. "Survive."

Because that's what he does, what he's always done. If he were the sort of man inclined to grand gestures--such as following his lover into the Deep Roads to die hand in hand--he wouldn't be alive to make this particular one. When the Calling is too strong and Alistair leaves for the last time, Zevran will not go with him.

Alistair presses a kiss to the side of his head. "Good."

 

Coda

In the moonlight, he watches Zevran sleep while the music whispers to him from the shadows. It grows louder by such tiny degrees that there's hardly a difference between one day and the next, but he knows it's louder today than it was a year ago, and in another year it will be louder yet.

Still, he has a little time remaining to him, so he strokes his hand down Zevran's chest, and when Zevran's eyes open, Alistair kisses him, exploring the skin he knows as well as he knows his own, enjoying this moment.

For a little while more.


End file.
